Theatrical Virtuality — Virtual Theatricality

Abstract

This article is about a farm — a virtual farm, to be precise. Here, a farmer lives together with his cow and a few other animals. He and his cow don’t see eye to eye on many things. In fact, they are involved in a continuous domestic drama. The farmer likes order and wants the cow to be in its shed. Unfortunately, the cow likes freedom and tries to escape whenever the farmer has caught it. As the two antagonists are equally stubborn, the conflict can go on forever. This farm, with its ongoing conflicts, came into being because of a research project sponsored by the EEC. The aim of the project was to investigate what it takes to construct a virtual puppet theatre. As dramaturges our role in the project was first and foremost to work out scenarios that would work in a computer-based theatre.